Afternoon Report | ASX surges on softer inflation numbers
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Welcome to the Fear and Greed Business News Afternoon Report for Wednesday the 29th of July 2026. I'm Michael Thompson and every afternoon we've got the five stories that happened today that you need to know about.
Why did the ASX surge after softer inflation data and what do the inflation numbers mean for interest rates?
Let's go with story number one, the local share market climbed to a five-month high today after... softer than expected inflation figures greatly reduced the prospect of an interest rate rise next month. The S&P ASX 200 rose 1%, closing at 9,039 points as annual headline inflation slowed to 3.8% and the Reserve Bank's underlying measure, the preferred trimmed mean, held steady at 3.6%. We'll have a closer look at this tomorrow, but markets are now pricing in a very, very, very slim chance of an August rate rise. On the bourse, it was actually the healthcare stocks leading the gains today. CSL surged more than 7%. ResMed also rose strongly. Consumer stocks, JB Hi-Fi, Eagers Automotive, they rallied.
Investors seemingly welcoming the reduced threat of higher borrowing costs. Coles was also up 2.5%. Woolies up almost 2%. And mining giant Rio Tinto gained almost 4% after reporting a stronger than expected 43% lift in first half underlying earnings driven by higher copper production. Story number two, it was a big day for corporate news actually. Mineral Resources rose almost 5%. 5% after it delivered a strong June quarter result. The miner exceeded expectations across its lithium and mining services. Production volumes improved and costs went down. Perpetual rejected a revised $2.65 billion takeover proposal from private equity firm EQT saying that the offer does not reflect the value of the company or represent the best interests of shareholders.
Perpetual closed 2% lower today. And Woodside Energy climbed almost 1.5% after reporting a 35% jump in June quarter revenue while forecasting full year production of between 174 million and 185 million barrels of oil. There you go. Story number three, authorities have confirmed the first known transmission of the highly contagious H5N1 bird flu virus within an Australian resident bird population. The virus has spread between greater crested terns in coastal South Australia and marking a significant development after the strain was first detected in Australia last month. Previously, the cases all involved migratory birds who had potentially arrived here already sick. There are now 27 confirmed or expected cases across South Australia, New South Wales, WA and Queensland.
Agriculture Minister Julie Collins says further detections among Australian wildlife are expected, although there is no evidence of mass bird deaths at this stage. And importantly, the virus has not been been detected in Australia's commercial poultry industry. Story number four, a bit of an update to a story that we talked about last week. An artificial intelligence agent developed by OpenAI hacked a second company during a rogue AI incident, according to Bloomberg. Last week, OpenAI revealed that its agent had breached systems at artificial intelligence platform Hugging Face after escaping an isolated testing environment, or sandbox, It's now emerged that it also accessed systems belonging to a second company, a customer of cloud technology company, Modal.
OpenAI has acknowledged the earlier breach and says that it will improve protections around future training and evaluations. And finally, story number five, at least 13 people have died after a powerful magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck near the southern Japanese city of Kumamoto. Rescue crews are searching for survivors trapped beneath collapsed buildings while thousands of homes remain without power. Roads across the region have been badly damaged. Eight people were pulled from the wreckage of a partially collapsed shopping center. Now, an explosion actually tore through the shopping center about an hour after the earthquake. Authorities are investigating whether a gas leak was responsible for that.
The search is still continuing for survivors with Prime Minister Sone Takaichi saying that the rescue effort is now a race against time.
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